AFTER MORE THAN a half century the crime still shocks—and fascinates. In the early hours of Aug. 9, 1969, several members of the Manson Family, a commune and cult led by career criminal and aspiring musician Charles Manson, broke into the Hollywood Hills home of director Roman Polanski at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles. The intruders then butchered Polanski’s eight-months-pregnant wife, 26-year-old actress Sharon Tate, along with four others. The next night Manson’s followers—primarily women in their 20s—also murdered wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca, 44, and his wife, Rosemary, 38. The rampage was almost surreal in its savagery. After tying up the victims, the killers hacked them to death, then smeared the walls with words such as “Pig” scrawled in their blood.
At the Family’s home base—Spahn Ranch, an…
